'Everyone knew!' Problems with UW-Madison prof who led 'toxic' lab persisted for 2 decades

Dec. 4—With a six-sentence resignation letter wishing UW-Madison all the best, engineering professor Akbar Sayeed left behind "a career-long string of victims" and a department that failed time and again in responding to his bad behavior, according to a newly released investigative report.

While a previous UW-Madison investigation flagged concerns about Sayeed's conduct in the years leading up to one of his doctoral students dying by suicide — which the Wisconsin State Journal first chronicled in 2019 — a more recent university investigation examining Sayeed's entire career found his hostile and intimidating behavior began within months of his 1997 hiring and continued on even after the student's 2016 suicide despite being on suspension for such behavior.

"There are far too many former students, dating back to his very first, and continuing through his last, who report being traumatized by the abusive treatment they received," one witness is quoted saying in the report.

Sayeed's behavior is emblematic of a broader bullying problem in higher education, one in which graduate students dependent on their research advisers for work, publications and glowing references can be exploited. His case also highlights the difficulties of policing bad behavior at a large and decentralized institution.

UW-Madison leaders assigned biochemistry professor Ann Palmenberg to investigate Sayeed a second time after the State Journal wrote about the suicide of John Brady. The newspaper's report prompted eight more people to come forward with their own accounts about the professor's "toxic" temper.

Sayeed, who did not respond to calls and emails for this story, denied many of the allegations made against him in a written response to Palmenberg. He also accused UW-Madison of the same charges it leveled against him, arguing that the university bullied and harassed him by opening a second investigation to defame, denounce, dismiss and "cancel" him.

Some within the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department had repeatedly confronted Sayeed about his behavior but records show just one written reprimand in his 24 years as a university employee.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in a statement to the State Journal that the overwhelming majority of interactions between students and staff are positive, but this case "remains deeply distressing" to her. Brady's death was a campuswide catalyst to make the reporting process easier and more accessible.

"Abusive and bullying behavior has been an issue for far too long in higher education," she said. "I have been clear to faculty, staff and students on campus: we will not tolerate this behavior. We will investigate and take appropriate action on complaints, up to and including the dismissal of staff and tenured faculty."

Bryan Rubio Perez, a fourth-year graduate student in the department, said the culture has improved since Sayeed's case became public but more education and training is needed. The latest report was a troubling read, he said, making him question who, if anyone, was looking out for students all that time.

Not only did Sayeed fail Brady, Rubio Perez said. The system failed, too.

Red flags

Palmenberg's 194-page report, completed in July 2020 and released last month to the State Journal, describes a decades-long pattern of shouting, swearing and berating of not only students, but also department faculty and staff. Sayeed's outbursts were almost always followed by apologies and short-lived attempts to change his behavior.

One witness recalled a time when Sayeed wanted to fire a student for not dedicating enough time to research, leading the professor to physically shake the student. The witness said they "read him the riot act" but ultimately didn't report the incident.

Sayeed recalled grabbing but not shaking the student's shoulders in the early 2000s and said the student had an ongoing issue with attending meetings and arriving to them on time.

Even off campus, Sayeed's temperament drew notice. A witness said Sayeed engaged in shouting matches at academic conferences. Sayeed said he, like other researchers, argued at conferences but only "in the spirit of free intellectual inquiry."

Some faculty members experienced Sayeed's bullying behavior, though less frequently than students. They exchanged "war stories" described as "common and treasured," the report said. A professor who had a similar scientific interest as Sayeed eventually changed their focus of research because of him.

Another faculty member said they avoided Sayeed whenever possible.

"In retrospect, this was something of a cop out," the professor told Palmenberg. "I saw his erratic behavior and, for the most part, insulated myself from it. I did not consider what life must be like for his grad students and others who were under his power."

Lack of intervention

Faculty in offices as far as five doors down from Sayeed's could hear him screaming at students, the report said.

"Everyone knew!" one witness said about the shouting.

Yet no one intervened, the report said, leading students to drop out, extend their graduation timeline by switching labs or continue enduring Sayeed's behavior. The situation had devastating consequences for Brady, who died five years ago this October. His family declined to comment for this story.

Palmenberg pressed individuals she interviewed about why people tolerated his behavior for so long without filing continuous grievances.

One employee said staff complained but never in writing. Another said they were told by the department chair — who is not named in the report but a spokesperson said is a former chair, not the current one — that the culture in engineering was to avoid putting complaints in writing.

A written reprimand came in 2003 after he erupted at the department chair who had declined to hire Sayeed's postdoctoral researcher for a lecturer position. The fact that he received the warning when written rebukes for even the most egregious behavior were "apparently discouraged or even suppressed," the report said, underscored the seriousness of the event.

Still, Palmenberg concluded the single rebuke "did little to prevent subsequent employees and especially students from being subjected to the next 13 years of abuse."

Suspended

In the wake of Brady's suicide, UW-Madison placed Sayeed on what officials described as a two-year unpaid suspension. He spent part of that time working for the National Science Foundation, or NSF, as a "rotator" making recommendations about which research proposals to fund.

A letter outlining the terms of Sayeed's suspension — which UW-Madison did not include as part of the records released in the first investigation — shows the university paid 10% of Sayeed's NSF salary and agreed to describe his employment, if asked, as a UW-Madison faculty member "on unpaid leave, or words to that effect." The letter also notes the College of Engineering dean approved Sayeed's participation in the NSF appointment.

Some graduate students said the dean's approval, along with the university's partial salary coverage and reference check language, masked the seriousness of the situation.

Others question why Sayeed wasn't fired from the start. That's how NSF responded after learning about his previous behavior from UW-Madison.

UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas said unpaid leave accurately described Sayeed's employment status, noting that the university must follow laws when releasing certain disciplinary information.

The terms of Sayeed's suspension didn't allow UW-Madison to limit outside employment, he said. It is UW-Madison's practice to support appointments when an outside agency requests an employee for a rotator position and there's an "expectation" that the university contribute 10% of the employee's salary.

A two-year ban from research is a "significant" punishment and the longest suspension UW-Madison has ever imposed, Lucas said. Because the field Sayeed works in is rapidly evolving, it wasn't clear he could even continue as a faculty member after such a long break.

Breaking rules

Even while on leave from UW-Madison, the report points to several instances in which Sayeed violated the terms of his suspension.

In the summer of 2018, Sayeed returned to campus to move from one office to another to accommodate the hiring of some new faculty. When renovations to his new office weren't finished in time for the move, he "verbally abused" the department employee coordinating his office relocation.

The encounter left the staffer in tears. Sayeed "emotionally beat the crap out of me," the employee told the investigator.

Sayeed chalked the encounter up to a misunderstanding.

In other examples of Sayeed breaking the terms of his suspension, the report said he requested department staff help him with an NSF conference and used a UW-Madison purchasing card to register a student for a conference. Months before he was allowed to accept new graduate students to his lab, he asked the department's graduate student coordinator for access to graduate student applicant files and for help in securing funding for a specific student.

Sayeed said he was never told he was banned from interacting with staff and he denied using the purchasing card. The long timeline to recruit students necessitated earlier contact in order to have students working with him upon his return, he said, and the particular student he had asked about chose UW-Madison to work with him.

Shortly before Sayeed was scheduled to return, the case became public, more allegations surfaced and outrage grew. UW-Madison reassigned him from teaching to the dean's office and opened a second investigation.

Changing a culture

Rubio Perez remembers that time on campus well. Then in his third semester of graduate school, learning about the case made him question whether he even wanted to stay in academia. What kept him on campus was the passion he saw in a group for the department's graduate students who protested Sayeed's return and is still working to improve the culture.

Now serving as vice president of the group, Rubio Perez said he feels comfortable enough to report a problem but others may not and the situation is specific to each lab.

"I think the department today is evolving," he said. "I am concerned that people who were silent and did nothing for the past 20 years are still here. Have they reflected? Have they learned?"

UW-Madison is educating its employees about the importance of speaking up. The university has offered more than 100 training workshops, identified multiple reporting pathways, incorporated grievance processes into graduate student handbooks, developed online resources and added positions to support graduate students.

The Graduate School is more closely evaluating students' experiences with periodic program reviews that look at students' time-to-degree, completion rates and climate reports. Some schools and colleges, including engineering, have taken extra steps, such as adding mentor-mentee relationship expectations to handbooks and allowing students to take complaints directly to the dean's office.

College of Engineering Dean Ian Robertson said in a statement to the State Journal that climate is a shared responsibility requiring constant effort.

"My expectation is that each member of the College of Engineering actively contributes to a safe, supportive and welcoming climate here, and brings to light any actions that do otherwise," he said. "This is my strongest commitment to our engineering community, and I will not tolerate anything less."

Palmenberg said she found "ample evidence" that the department's culture has changed in recent years.

Sayeed's case was the first investigated under a new hostile and intimidating behavior policy, Blank said. Before being adopted in 2016, there was no process outlining an appropriate response to bullying complaints. UW-Madison has received several complaints since then, a sign to her that the policy is working.

"Our work is by no means complete and changing a culture takes time," Blank said.

Sayeed resigned Aug 1. In his 48-page written response to the investigation, he said some faculty and staff engaged in a deliberate campaign to dismiss him by providing exaggerated and fabricated allegations. He said the two-year suspension "significantly impacted" him and his family, during which time he explored counseling, meditation and medication to correct his behavior.

The lack of disciplinary action for the majority of Sayeed's career was also part of his defense.

"This is screaming of institutional failure and no one wants to take responsibility for it!" he wrote.

Sayeed questioned the impartiality of the investigation, noting that the process outlined in the faculty handbook did not allow him to cross-examine witnesses nor did it contain a statute of limitations. He argued that a double jeopardy protection should apply because he had already been investigated.

Palmenberg, in her response, said her investigation focused on new complaints.

Sayeed is now working as an independent researcher and technical consultant, according to his personal website. He continues to publish papers and present at conferences.

Reflecting on his time at UW-Madison, Sayeed described a relationship with academia that initially felt like a honeymoon but eventually soured. He said on his website that he felt "blessed and liberated" to retire, and excited about the "infinite" opportunities ahead.

"Here I am, alive and kicking," he wrote. "I have finally managed to escape the seemingly inescapable pull of the academic black hole."

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